Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [133]
He wanted to be among people, hidden in a crowd. There was a public house, the Ten Bells, on the other side of the road. He might find a woman there. He crossed the street, dodging out of the path of a cart, and pushed into the pub...
... there were a few warm folks scattered in the crowd, but mostly the Ten Bells was a vampire pub. Godalming resisted the meagre temptations of a pint of pig’s blood, but found company with a pair of new-born whores. To everyone but his quarry, he would seem a slumming murgatroyd from the West End. He wore his frilliest shirt and his tightest jacket, and looked the part of a bloodthirsty, empty-headed poseur.
The whores were called Nell and Marie Jeanette; they were lightly sozzled on gin and pig’s blood. Nell was remarkably hirsute with a striking faceload of stiff red bristles. Marie Jeanette was Irish with absurd pretensions and new clothes. Marie Jeanette, who was almost pretty, had an appointment later, presumably with a deep-pocketed admirer. She was just passing the time but Nell was seriously on the prowl and took elaborate care to seem intrigued, often commenting on his general good appearance and obvious sharpness. He did his best to seem a drunken, affected idiot.
Nell was outlining a supposedly tempting scheme, involving a warm third party. She was proposing that they get together in her nearby room, and he could have his pleasure of the two of them, satisfying all his interests in one bed. She kept rubbing her whiskered cheek against him, letting him sniff her animal musk.
‘Yer has to rub me the right way, Artie,’ she said, smoothing the fur on her arm, then ruffling it up. ‘Depending on what yer likes.’
He looked across the pub and saw a man at the bar, back to the room. Godalming, with a rush of excitement, knew. He pressed close to Nell’s neck, making sure his face was in shadow. A pint of pig in his hand, the man turned, one heel up on the bar-rail, and looked about him. It was the Sergeant. He took a deep draught of his drink, then wiped the gory residue out of his moustache with the back of his hand. He was in a check suit not a constable’s uniform, but there was no mistaking him.
‘That man at the bar,’ he said, ‘with the extravagant moustache. Do you know him? Don’t be obvious about looking.’
If Nell noticed he was suddenly twice as intelligent and half as interested in her, she accepted the change without complaint. She was used to the requirements of her gentleman friends. Like a good little spy, she took a neatly surreptitious look and whispered to him, ‘He’s a regular. Danny Dravot.’
The name meant nothing but hearing it gave him a ticklish thrill in his stomach. His quarry had a face and a name. Dravot was almost in Godalming’s power.
‘I thought I might have known him in the army,’ he said.
‘He was in India, I hears. Or maybe Afghanistan.’
‘A sergeant, I’ll wager.’
‘Some does call him that.’
Marie Jeanette was listening to them. She must be feeling left out, awaiting her tardy suitor.
‘Does yer want me to invite him over,’ Nell asked.
Godalming looked at Dravot’s glittering red eyes. Though sharp and clever, they did not seem to notice him.
‘No,’ he told the whore. ‘He’s not the fellow I thought he was.’
Dravot finished his pint and left the Ten Bells. Godalming let him get entirely out and stood up, leaving the two whores cold. They would be puzzled but go on to the next customer. Whores were no threat.
‘’Ere, where yer goin’?’ Nell protested.
He lurched away from the table, pretending to be drunk.
‘’E’s a rum ’un,’ Nell told Marie Jeanette.
The doors were pulled open just as he reached them and he slipped out into the street, shoving aside a new-comer. Dravot was briskly marching away, towards the Old Jago. He made as if to follow but a hand was laid on his shoulder.
‘Art?’
... of all the people in the Empire, he had run into Jack Seward! The doctor was much changed. Still warm, he seemed